So good evening everyone. So I'm going to talk this evening about this chat that we just did. which we do one of our regular chants, The Harmony of Difference and Sameness, in Sando-kai, in Sando-Japanese. And I'm doing this as an introduction tonight, partly as a preparation for the talk next Sunday, which will be by guest speaker Stephen Hahn, eminent Zen Buddhist scholar, who has... Locate just located and translated some Chinese commentary. On this, how many difference in same so that'll be a. World premiere event of the English translations of these commentaries. Including by shredder who was initiated with record. So I'm just going to, I'm not going to go over every line, but I want to kind of give an introduction to this important chant in our lineage.

[01:10]

So it's by, the chant is by Shito, who also wrote the Song of the Grass Hut and sometimes chants. But this chant, the Harmony of Difference in Seniors, and the Hokyo Sanrai by Dongshan, who is a few generations after Shito, were for a long time the transmission documents in Soto Zen, the main documents that were used in transmission. Excuse me. So I want to just spend some time with the title because it's really important. The Harmony of Difference and Saneness. This goes back to the two truths of Nagarjuna, these two aspects of reality. There are lots of ways of talking about them, in this case, difference and sameness. So sameness is the ultimate or universal truth of reality.

[02:15]

that all is one, that all is empty. So this is here called sameness. We're all the same. Dogen came back from going to China and said, was asked what he brought back and he said, eyes horizontal, nose vertical. So we all share that. And the universal or ultimate truth is to see, to see the ultimate, to see the universal, or to see emptiness as a perceptionist, or other ways of talking about it. In the title of this in Saitama Japanese, Sando Kai, the sameness is the do. It means literally the same. So all things as one, all things as whole, all things as part of the universal truth. And that's something that in our Zazen practice we start to have some sense of.

[03:18]

As we continue with regular practice, this becomes more and more clear as to background awareness. However, As this chant says, according to the saying, this is still not enlightenment, so I'll come back to that. But the point is that there's the other side, which is difference, the particulars. Each of us has a particular way of expressing wholeness, of expressing Buddha. The particulars is, you know, the phenomenal world, our usual way of being in the world. And usually in our human culture, we are used to thinking in terms of all these differences. Notice all the differences and make distinctions. This is how our mind works. Subject to subject as we are and objects all around us and all are different.

[04:27]

So there's the sameness and there's the difference. And san is the character here for difference. San also means to study, study the differences. So, but practice, a practice of zazen, a practice of zazen is fundamentally san do kai. Kai is It can be translated as harmonizing or matching. Kai is literally two towers that fit together, so they match. So the point is, in terms of our practice, how do we bring the ultimate awareness into the particular experiences and difficulties and issues in our everyday activities? That's what this song is about.

[05:28]

That's what our practice is about. That's what Sutra Zen philosophy is about. So this gets extrapolated in the Jewel Marys Shabbati. It talks about the five-fold interaction of the universal and the particular. That's a whole other elaboration of this, but the basis is just this seeing oneness, your wholeness, the ultimate and the universal. is everything is the same and seeing the differences, the particulars, but how do we integrate them? How do we harmonize them? How do we fit them together? So that's the title of this chat that we do regularly. So I'm going to go through some of the lines, and I just hope to have some discussion and questions, comments. So it begins, the mind of the great sage of India is intimately transmitted from west to east.

[06:35]

So the great sage of India is, of course, Shakyamuni Buddha. And historically, yes, it's been transmitted from west to east, this great mind, this great our ultimate awareness is awakening. So it went from India to China, India to Tibet, India down to South Asia, China to Korea, China and Korea to Japan, and then in much more recent times, about a century ago it went to Some Buddhists came to Hawaii and Los Angeles, and Tsukiboshi came in the 60s to San Francisco, and continued to move from west to east, and afterward to Chicago. So this mind, this awareness of Shakyamuni, the great sage in India, is ultimately transmitted from west to east.

[07:42]

Sometimes it goes back the other way, as in American Buddhism, sometimes somewhat reforming some of Asian Buddhism, but that's another story. Anyway, the human faculty, so I'm not going to go through every line, but I will do the early lines. While human faculties are sharp or dull, the way has no northern or southern ancestors. So whether your faculties are sharp or dull, whether you're smart or dumb, it doesn't really matter in terms of this. It's not about intelligence. While human faculties, and human faculties also refers to perceptions, which we'll see later on in this poem, but the way has no northern or southern ancestors. So the, uh, In China, particularly, there was historically, at some point, Northern Chan Zen, Southern Chan Zen.

[08:49]

And, you know, part of what happens historically, all through the history of Buddhism and Zen and then here in America too, is there are distinctions and there are different branches and different traditions. So it says the spiritual source shines clear in white. The branching streams flow on in the darkness. So the branching streams are all the different traditions and lineages of Buddhism. And this thing about light and dark is interesting. Light refers to, in a way, to the particulars, to the side of Difference in the light we can see. I can distinguish Mike and Jerry. Even though it's sort of dead, the one is totally dark. Everything is one. You can't see.

[09:51]

You can't see any particular. So it says here the black bashing stream slow on the dark. Well, first, the spiritual source tries clear in the light. As we see the tradition of. and the Great Sage of India, and the only branching streams were on in the dark. And in our Tsukiroshi Zato Zen tradition, we have a branching stream. Douglas is involved in planning. He's going to be going to next week. Douglas? Yes. Yes. So, Wade and Ruben, we went to a meeting at Blanchard's training, which is the different temples and groups that derive from Sacrosanct and Superluxury Strange. But this is what we talked about here, just a sense of all the different streams of, without a

[10:56]

all the different ways in which it's been transmitted. And then we can come back and talk about each of these lines. But the next two lines are very important. Resting at things that surely can be shared. Well, this is our ordinary way of being in the world, in our consumerist culture, we grasp after things. And our mind, it sees objects out there, so-called, you know, tries to get a hold of things, tries to control things. So grasping at things, that's shriveled delusion. That's our deluded world, right? However, the next line is one of the key lines of the whole poem. According to Satan, this is still not enlightened. So it happens that people have sometimes the dramatic experiences of, according to Satan, of meeting the ultimate or the universal truth.

[12:07]

Sometimes these are dramatic experiences. But that's still not enlightenment. For some people, there are Buddhists and people in other traditions who think that to see the universal, to see the ultimate, is the goal, and that's enlightenment, but that's not in our tradition. According to Satanists, it is halfway there. According to Satanists, it's still not total awakening or enlightenment. Somebody yesterday was mentioning Hinduism where there's some friends The goal is Godhead or something like that. So in a lot of traditions, the spiritual traditions in the world, the goal is to unite with the ultimate or the universal. In our social tradition, that's not the point. Having experiences of the universal and the ultimate, and as I said before, this happens in Zazen.

[13:15]

Or it can happen when you, you know, walk out of the Zen door and walk down the street. It can happen any time. Or it just becomes part of the background of what you are. As Suki Roshi said, when he walks through the fog and So just by paying attention to this dynamic of difference in saying this, something happens. It says all the objects of the senses interact and yet do not. Sometimes the sense faculty, the sense object do not, sometimes not. Interactions bring involvement, otherwise each keeps its place. So again, the ultimate is not yet, is not the goal of meeting the ultimate, is not the goal or purpose of our practice.

[14:22]

The purpose of our practice is when we, as we become familiar with this background wellness, this background ultimate awareness that we do, how do we bring it into our lives? How does that become part of what we are and how we are helpful in the world? How do we share that in our everyday lives? So I'm not going to go into every line, but it talks about sights varying and sounds differing, and the senses and the four elements, earth, wind, fire, and air, return to their natures just as a child turns to its mother. So... I'm going to stick my head a little bit. With each and everything, depending on these roots, the leaves spread forth. So there's this mechanical kind of imagery throughout this.

[15:27]

Trunk and branches share the essence of year in common, each has its speech. So trunk and branches share the essence. great sage of India and all the great ancestors who have continued this tradition for 2,500 years, you know, and then the branches. So the practice is about sharing this, Awareness, sharing kindness, sharing our caring about the world and about people in the world and about the suffering of the world. How do we do that? How do we do that? Also, with some sense of the stagnance of just settling into awareness of the ultimate universal. So... You know, like there's darkness.

[16:32]

Don't take it as darkness in the dark. There's light, but don't see it as much. So this is is starting to talk about the way that the ultimate and the particulars interact. Right in. The light. Writing the particulars there is. This completeness this almost the ultimate. And. In the dark, there's light. Don't see it. Don't grab onto it. There's light right in the ultimate. There are the particular things. So this harmonizing, this inaction, this putting together of difference and sameness is subtle, and it's actually going on in our practice, even from when we begin to practice. Sometimes people have told me that, in fact, in a little while, a friend said to me, oh, what are you doing?

[17:39]

And people around us incensed when we are involved in this practice, et cetera, and getting together results in a particular situation we're in. So, What in dark oppose one another like the front and back foot in walking? Well, the front and back foot in walking are, you know, it's an image of, you know, we couldn't walk with just one foot. We could use a crutch or something. But front and back foot in walking, they're not actually fighting each other. It's just this complementary image of how we proceed in our practice. Each of the myriad things has its merit expressed according to function and place. Yeah, this is an important point. Everyone has their own special gifts, as one of the Vedic poets says.

[18:46]

Each of the myriad things has its merit. expressed according to function of place. So each particular, each different person, each different bit of reality has its merit, has its place, and it gets expressed depending on the situation. Phenomena exists. So we might think that emptiness means there's no such thing as phenomena. But that's not what this is about. There is both form and emptiness. Phenomena and form exist. And it's interaction with wellness, boxing with it. So these images of connection. Actually, the Kai in Sons of Kai, the original Chinese meaning is So when a board or a camp were sent out messengers, they would break some tile.

[19:56]

And so it sends something to the other person and the tiles would fit together. And that's how you know that they came from the same place. That's the very early Chinese energy. So each of her things has some boxing that fit that point and that principle response. So the way one of the ways in Chinese that they talk about the sense of difference, the saying this is principle. We Chinese, the phenomenon is the particular things should. And so here is using that that way of talking about it. Phenomena exists. Possibly the principal response arrow points me. That has to do with the story that I told before, but there was a master archer who was the best archer in China.

[20:58]

He was the greatest. He had a student who was very good. And he said one of his students thought, oh, I'm as good as that guy. I'm better than that guy. And he took up his bow and arrow and shot it towards his teacher, because if he killed his teacher, he would be the greatest in the world. But the teacher, of course, understood his lure, and he shot an arrow, and he won. So that's just a classic Chinese story, but that's what is being referenced here. So, again, all of this is just kind of an introduction to this text, so that we are informed when we see the 9th of Sunday, it makes us some neo-Chinese commentaries. The next one says, hearing the words, how do you sample meaning?

[21:59]

Let me show you the standards that we wrote. hearing the words, understand the meaning. This is one principle of Buddhist studies were in Buddhism that you should not go by the words to understand the meaning. So when I was first translating, I translated a book called Cultivating the Empty Field by Hongxia, who is a later teacher in his tradition. And the original was my master's thesis, and I translated all the words, and I thought I had it, and I took it to my thesis advisor. And I went back a week later. I thought it was a good translation, and he said to me, this is no good. Start over. Which was one of the hardest things that anybody's done for him, because he said, you translated the words, but not the name.

[23:07]

So, I went back and these are the paragraphs for a while. Oh, what's the. And that's what that transaction. So, the point is, don't get hung up on the words. Don't get hung up on the particular translation. What's the meaning? So if you look at different translations of Durban, as I've told people, if you compare the same paragraph and the same passage to word translations, you can see what's the meaning from Nizhaza. No, it's that reading Doug and reading Florence is a little challenging person, but the more you read it, you start to. Be able to supply the meeting. So it says don't set up standards and you know.

[24:10]

Follow the tradition of the ancestors and then when they have to, you know, express that for our own situation. You know, I'm placed in Chicago. Or, uh. Yeah. Yeah, somebody from Mexico. Anyway, people may be in the Chicago area. Don't set up standards of your own. If you don't understand the way right before you, how will you know the path as you walk? So it's not a matter of figuring out the way right before you. Just look what's next. Progress is not a matter of far or near. So we tend to do in our modern consumerist culture, you know, think of progress in terms of how close or not to the goal. And this is that progress is not a matter of far or near.

[25:13]

You might think you're very far away and then suddenly you're right there. If you are confused, I respectfully urge you to study the mystery, which is all of us. The word study is a little misleading. It's not studying like reading texts and figuring something out or calculating. It's studying with your body, feeling. Feeling what's this reality of saying there's some difference in this body. In this posture. Here tonight. So I respectfully urge you. Study the mystery. Do not pass your days and nights in vain. Days and nights. Is a phrase that. Could just be trusted in this time. So there's some translations. Of this. Just say don't waste time. Don't waste time.

[26:15]

Do not catch it is something and. Often on Hans, we don't have it on the hotnet that it was stretching tonight, but it on the family block we had. Or it was in the old version. It's just don't waste time so. OK, that's. The harmony of difference and sameness. just kind of days of introduction and see what's to the partners to offer from the Chinese next Sunday. But right now, comments, questions, responses to anything like this, questions or some of these things mystified or whatever, please feel free to respond patiently. Yes, thank you. You know, my favorite line in than texts, whether it's from Dachshund or Shito, is the line about the arrow points meeting.

[27:23]

And I wonder if you could say more of that. That's an important metaphor. I still am not sure that I know what it's a metaphor for. I was wondering, what is the principle that is responding here or beginning reference? And could you give an A different example of our points meeting. Yeah, sure. One way this one one at one aspect of this is insurance. So you and I have sat face to face looks on and when. There's some clear understanding. There's some clear understanding out of one's need. It's not something, it's not about figuring out something. It's just, you know, that's a highfalutin sample, but when you meet someone and it's just there, it's just like, gosh, it's just two men together.

[28:35]

When you meet someone and you recognize them in a way that's beyond our ideas of who we are. This happens in, you know, romantic connections too. How do we, but it doesn't have to be that. It's just, how do we meet? It's about intimacy. So that's the principle. Well, it's the principle and it happens together. It happens in a particular situation. So a lot of the Zen texts, a lot of koan stories seem to be, you know, metaphors or some kind of image of something abstract, but they're also just exactly particular. Nancy and Dan. Just meeting or any situation where when you do prostrations and using the ground, you need the ground.

[29:50]

It's also, does that help? Yes, it does. Other questions or comments about any of this? I can't see so well. Yeah, that's OK. Oh, in New York. Yeah. So just anyone comments, questions, responses, any part of this chat that we do, you know, someone right here over here. Oh, yes. I only saw you go to the corner. Box. I know. So the grasping at things is surely delusion. And according to saying this is still unrighteous. To what extent does that sort of mirror the truth pointed at in Heart Sutra of form and emptiness? Emptiness is form. Good question.

[30:52]

Yes. Yes. So grasping after forms is, that's our ordinary, you know, diluted, disturbed, whatever world where people are trying to get a hold of whatever. And so that's the world of, you know, delusion, right? But courting with sameness is still not enlightenment. So just meeting emptiness, so in terms of the heart, which I have to translate it, Just mashing and being at one with emptiness is, that's not it. That's not working. It has to be integrated into your life. So in terms of the sawn dough and the cut, that's a big step in the dough.

[31:56]

So, you know, being obsessed with emptiness is a problem, you know, and it's possible, you know, especially if you go off to some intense domestic situation. where you're doing a lot of thoughts in every day, it's possible to get really blissed out and get really, you know, that this is it. And so that's an example of being obsessed or attached to emptiness. Because emptiness is just emptiness. The form is just emptiness. And emptiness is more important than emptiness. And there's emptiness and emptiness. So anyway, yeah. Not to be caught in emptiness. Being caught in emptiness is just as bad as people being caught in forms and trying to, you know, billionaires trying to make more and more money. So anyway, yeah. Thank you.

[33:03]

Other questions, comments? Get the camera out of here. So I'm starting to feel like I'm thinking about the line studying the mystery. Yes. And I honestly don't really know if I'm studying the mystery anymore. I feel like I'm but I don't feel like in a negative way, like I don't care. Like, I, I feel like I'm like, uh, it feels more accurate to be like, I feel like I'm just sort of vibing, you know, like I'm not, I'm not trying to understand in particular, to be honest, I don't think, I mean, I, I have, I feel it and bring that up not as like a good or a bad thing, but just as like a, I feel like there was many times when I really was studying the mystery. Um, and I don't feel like I know anything better now, but I feel, but like, I don't, I just don't know what that means.

[34:08]

So studying the mystery doesn't mean trying to reach some particular understanding. Okay. So people can feel like, Oh yeah, I know. I just doesn't. It's all cool. Um, But the study is about, well, how does it feel this period of something in your shoulders, in your knees, in particular thoughts and feelings that are coming up? Oh, you know, I'll mention one of the, so the word study is a little misleading. It's not figuring something out. It's about thinking. coming back to sitting in the middle of the mystery, sitting in the middle of the mystery of our life. We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow or next year or 10 years, you know, or we don't know what's going to happen in five minutes in the middle of Najazna.

[35:11]

You know, what thoughts and feelings should come. So one of my favorite stories about Shakespeare, this is in Pearson University, Shito's extensive director, Shito said that the blue sky is not hindered by the white clouds drifting. The universal, our ultimate awareness is not harmed by your thoughts and feelings. They can drift away. But there's a process in there. of our awareness and how that works. So studying that, it's a mystery. It is a mystery. We don't understand the whole thing. We don't understand how all the atoms in our body are working. We can't figure that out. We don't have a clear understanding of that. We experience it. So how do you, I might say it is, how does it feel?

[36:15]

How do you feel your experience? from moment to moment. It's awesome. That's fascinating, too. Does that help you? Good. Douglas? I was going to go back to what Dad pointed out with the language about grasping things and surely deleting and clearing and seeing as he's staying on enlightenment, which is you know, how across the board there's constant warning to not take these as, not reify these things. Right. Either side. Either side. And when we grasp at things, either conceptually or by desire, then we ignore their, I guess, well, the sameness aspect of things. And similarly, we're just looking at them as, oh, it's all one, it's all one. And this is the fact that oneness exists only as things together.

[37:18]

And I think that a big part of it, the grasping, is reached. And later on, when it says, you know, in the light, there's darkness, but don't take it as darkness. In the darkness, light, but don't take it as light. So we would say that we become intimate with the things, but we become intimate with the light, and we become intimate with the darkness. But still... When we take darkness, we can't say, oh, this is emptiness, because then we just conceptualize it. We have to not grasp at the same time that we may yield to that wholeness and the specific things.

[38:20]

Yeah. So as you're describing it, it's about intimacy. It's about becoming intimate with the process. Both sides are offered, wholeness and particularity. There's a dog, you know, and I knew it was a dog immediately. Before I thought about it. So. How do we? So studying mysteries about becoming intimate with the process of this dance of harmonized. Our particular situation or particular So yeah, it's about, it's not something to figure out.

[39:25]

It's not about to think about this, or you can if you want to, but it's about just settling into our experience and dynamics of our experience.

[39:56]

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